(car engine revving) - Super cars, you know I
love 'em, but you can't talk about 'em without
mentioning one of the oldest and most famous sports
car manufacturers ever. They made one of the most
iconic super cars in the world. The poster was almost certainly on your bedroom wall when you were a kid. With that weird wedgie shape, in that blazing Rosso Corsa paint, and that incredible sound it made. (F40 engine revving) It was the ultimate Ferrari. This is everything that you need to know to get up to speed on the Ferrari F40. (upbeat music) It's 1982 and the Federation
Internationale De L'Automobile, or FiA, decided to make up some
new rules for rally racing, but what they actually did was pretty much just throw the rules right out. They called this set of rules Group B and with nearly free reign
and an almost entirely blank slate, manufacturers went wild. The Group B cars were becoming
fire-breathing monsters and the public was going nuts for 'em. (screaming) But, rather than throw
technological prowess at a car like Porsche did with the 959, Ferrari wanted to go another direction. They used the classic formula
of less weight plus more power equals fastest car to develop
the incredible 288 GTO, but by the time they built
the 200 production cars required by the FiA, the other Group B cars
had become even more ridiculously quick so they
added a ton of aero and power and in 1986, the 288
GTO Evoluzione was born. Unfortunately, that's
right when Group B died. The FiA decided it was time
to burn the no-rules-rule-book and all Group B cars were
banned from competition. That left Ferrari with a
badass race car locked up in its garage and no where to race it. At this point 88 year old
Enzo Ferrari said to himself, self you're getting pretty old, but this car company you
started is really neat and it's coming up on 40 years old now. Maybe you should build one
of the last really cool cars before you make that trip to
the big race track in the sky. So old Enzo decided he could still make something out of all that effort that went into the now
pointless 288 GTO Evoluzione and commissioned his engineers to build the best car in the world. He wanted a street car
with no compromises; the F40 and he wanted it fast. Both fast on the road and, you know, soon. It had to debut in time for
Ferrari's 40th anniversary and make it to 1987 Frankfurt Motor Show. So the F40 would be designed, tested, and launched in only 13
months; that is insanity. Ermanno Bonfiglioli, head of
special projects for Ferrari in the 1980s, said it went by in a flash. The chassis and bodywork development ran right along side the
drive train development which is not how it usually works. Luckily, Nicola Materazzi
at famous design house: Pininfarina had just
drawn up the Evoluzione. So, fellow Pininfarina
designers, Leonardo Fioravanti and Pietro Camardella started with that and transformed it into
an automotive masterpiece. They did comprehensive wind tunnel testing to optimize the aero
dynamics for what was to be the fastest Ferrari ever. The F40's nose swooped down and
practically kissed the road. NACA ducts, that means air
inlets, were everywhere and the huge squared off wing
placed right at the angle by designer Aldo Brovarone. Development had all been
done in super secret and only a handful of people close to Enzo had even seen the car. It was way more of a surprise than Drake's secret love child. No one knew what to
expect and the unveiling left the entire room
completely speechless. The F40 might as well have
been a road going spaceship. (screaming) - Oh my god Morty what did you do, you killed the Simpsons Morty.
(stuttering) - The interior meant business. Driving business. No stitch leather dash covers here, nope. The dash was just covered
in felt to reduce glare. There were no door panels or
even interior door handles. You pulled a cord to open the door. The side windows and even the windshield were plastic to save weight, but Ferrari did add air conditioning. - That, I love. - That's just the air conditioner. - I want it. - Who cared about door panels
anyway when you could look right at the carbon fiber
the doors were made out of. The front and rear clam
shells were also carbon fiber while the rest of the cars
11 panels were bonded Kevlar all built around a tubular steel frame. The F40 was the first
production car made with all composite body panels
and it weighed 3,000 pounds. That's very light for a super car. Pushing all this awesome
light weight racey stuff was a 2.9 liter, twin-turbo V8 turning out 278 horse power
at a screaming 7,000 RPM and 425 pound feet-o-torque at 4,000 RPM. Ferrari paid special attention
to the weight of the engine and they used a lot of ultra expensive, ultra light magnesium
alloys instead of aluminum. It helped the F40 scoot to 60
miles an hour in four seconds and through the quarter mile in under 12. And though Ferrari claimed
a somewhat controversial top speed of 201 miles an
hour, none ever reached 200 in any test on any track outside of Italy. Still, 199 was enough to top
Porsche's more extravagant 959 and its piddly 195 miles an hour. The numbers were impressive
but the F40's handling was a major challenge to get right. Ferrari test driver, Dario
Benuzzi was handed a ridiculously powerful car with a
new age composite body, no power steering, no brakes, and told to work it out pronto, but Benuzzi ultimately turned the F40 into a well balanced track weapon. Calling it the Ferrari he
was most proud of working on. Ferrari announced they
would build 400 F40's, but demand was unexpectedly high with more than 3,000
people trying to order one. In the end they built 1,311. Some loved its UFO look,
some really didn't, but everyone knew Enzo
wasn't gonna be around for much longer and the
F40 would be his last car. It was showing up all over
video games, magazine covers and wall posters, the public was fired up. Speculators started snapping the cars up and driving prices higher. Ferrari's asking price was
$200,000, but Formula 1 driver, Nigel Mansell, sold his for
one million British pounds in 1990; what a dick. Enzo Ferrari passed
away in August of 1988, thrilled that he was still
around to sign off on his epic final project and see the F40 become the world's fastest production car. But throughout the F40's
five year production, reviews were actually mixed. Mansell loved his, but McLaren
Formula 1 race car designer, Gorodon Murray slammed
it, calling it wobbly and saying it felt like a big go kart with a plastic body on it. The press gave it plenty of praise, but some car magazines that
tested it against the Porsche preferred the more refined 959. The F40 really didn't compromise in terms of road performance so it
was a brutal street car. Ferrari never intended
for it to be a race car which seemed like rather
obvious other option. Customers started to ask
for a racing version, Ferrari resisted until Daniel Marin, manager of a French Ferrari
importer talked them into it. They commissioned a limited
run of F40 LM race cars from a race tuning shop,
Michelotto Automobile. The shop modified virtually
every part of the F40 and the resulting LM
cars were way lighter, way more aerodynamic,
and way more powerful. They weighed in at 2,300 pounds,
made over 700 horse power and could hustle up to 229 miles per hour. You thought the plain
old F40 sounded good, the LM made eargasms. (F40 LM engine revving) In 1989, the first LM
race that Laguna Seca in the IMSA series here in the US. Even though the cars were
originally named for the 24 hours of them all, they didn't race there and Ferrari switched the
name to F40 Competitzione. They nabbed some podium finishes in IMSA and several wins at other
international GT racing series. But it never attained
real racing notoriety. With all of today's safety
regulations and red tape, a street legal super car like the F40 could never be made again. The F40 is the purest distillation
of Ferrari racing prowess into a road car and it was
an absolutely fitting solute to the life of an automotive hero. (F40 revving) We make a video every single day. To make sure you don't miss any of them, click this guy right here. You wanna see a video
about Ferrari's enemy, Ferruccio Lamborghini check out
this episode of Up To Speed. Want to know how aero dynamics work? Check out this episode of Science Garage. Follow me on Instagram @JamesPumphrey follow Donut @DonutMedia. I love you.
UTS is nice, however you can also listen to the F40's creator HIMSELF about its history. Seriously, Davide's channel is serioulsly underrated on this sub.
I'm a fan of UTS, but I feel like there's more wrong info in this one than in most of the others.
It's old
It's fast
You can't have one.
Only 2 things I need to know about the F40:
1) I want one.
2) I'll never own one.
The "car was developed in secret" is such a meme. Like, do the italians just have 0 communication skills. Everything is a black project to hide from NASA or something